City Explains Role In Potential Causeway Walmart Market

Editor's Note: The following is a June 27 email from Greg Rice, planning and development director, to Rob DiSpirito, city manager, in response to Dunedin Patch's June 26 report, titled "Despite Denials, Walmart Considering Dunedin Causeway Plaza." City manager DiSpirito forwarded Rice's email to Dunedin Patch's Local Editor Katie Dolac at 6:22 p.m. June 27. It appears below in its entirety. 

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On behalf of Bob Ironsmith and myself, we are very disappointed with the Patch’s choice of words in the title of the article regarding  a possible Wal-Mart Grocery Store at the Causeway Plaza. Staff has had one meeting (Avid Engineering) and one conference call (the property owner) separated by more than a year.  The first meeting discussed three things.

1. Store location possibilities on site.
2. How to accomplish the required flood proofing.
3. Stormwater retrofit for the parking lot.

After this meeting, the project discussion went dormant for close to a year – no plans, no phone calls, no nothing.  I thought it was dead, but then Bob and I received a phone call from the property owner asking additional questions regarding the potential grocery store location within the Plaza.  Bob and I referred the property owner to the next available DRC meeting for a conference call.  He asked the DRC members if there was any objection to the store being located from the north edge of General Dollar to the north end of Cricketer’s Pub.  DRC staff had no objection, but as you know, the City Commission is the decision making authority for this level of new construction.   That conference call was over a month ago.

When the DRC staff is in this position (i.e. nothing concrete, no application, no plans, nothing imminent), we ensure the potential project is listed on the DRC development spreadsheet  that is part of the monthly City  Manager’s Update.  That spreadsheet was created so that the City Manager and Commission are not caught unaware of the status of any project that might  be developed in Dunedin.

Please use the spreadsheet and ask me, Bob or Lael about the status of any potential project.

DRC staff still has no application, no plans, no scheduled meetings regarding a Wal-Mart Grocery store on the Causeway.  We aren’t denying anything because we don’t know anything.  Could a Wal-Mart Grocery store end up in the Causeway Plaza?  Of course it’s possible, the Tampa Bay Times dedicated a front page  story about Wal-Mart coming after Publix to be grocery kings.  With Publix directly across US Alt 19, maybe this is a prime location for Wal-Mart, but our DRC staff have no idea whether this will come to fruition or die on the development vine.

Previous Coverage:

• Despite Denials, Walmart Considering Dunedin Causeway Plaza
• Causeway Plaza Walmart Rumor Just Not True, City Says
• Neighborhood Walmart Opens on Main Street Today

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